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Swell Outlook

A very large, long period SSW swell is on track to build in and peak on Thursday from an exceptionally large and intense storm that has plowed through the Indian Ocean over the last 24-48 hours. Satellites measured a broad area of 40-50 knot wind, with multiple passes confirming seas in the 40-50’ range, with one pass indicating seas close to 55’. To give that some perspective, we generally only satellite confirmed seas of 55’ or greater a couple times a year. While the resulting swell is better aimed at Western Australia, which will be massive on Tuesday, we still expect significant energy to make it to Bali.

The swell direction is quite south at 210-195 degrees (with peak energy around 200 degrees), so Padang Padang should be roughly 50-60% of the size of the most open and exposed breaks. However, with such a large and long period deepwater swell on track, we still expect to see solid surf on Thursday. We’ll refine the timing for peak size, but at this point it looks like it will be over the afternoon hours (although strong surf is expected all day). At this point we’ll look for solid double overhead surf (10-12’ faces) through the day, with max sets of the day possibly pushing 15’ faces.

Stay tuned, we’ll refine the details over the next couple days after we see it hit West Oz and continue north.